From next the 1 june ours society adottera' the Euro as account currency.

Consequently the COMPUTER SCIENCE MONDADORI S.p.A denominera' in Euro the orders that preview the delivery beyond next 31 May. The contracts in being will maintain them validita', but we will automatically consider the currency converted in Euro to leave from 1 june 2001.

We invite you to emit in Euro all your invoices that expectably we will receive beyond next 31 May.

In any case the COMPUTER SCIENCE MONDADORI S.p.A to leave from the 1 june 2001 disporra' all the own ones satisfied in Euro, indipendentemente' from the currency in which the invoices of the suppliers are expressed.

It looks as if it's telling me all bills submitted after June 1st will be paid in Euro. But since I don't submit any bills to Mondadori, I'm wondering if Babelfish got it wrong. Could it be saying that future royalties will be paid in Euro? Except that the paragraph beginning "Vi invitiamo" seems pretty clear.

Form letter for everyone to whom they send money (many of whom would have submitted invoices). How are your Italian royalties paid currently--in lire, or in dollars? If it was in lire, it will undoubtedly be in Euros henceforth.

They're paid in lire. The payments go to a European agent who arranges for the bank transfer of funds to the American agent who pays me in dollars -- after both agents have taken their cuts. It seems to me this letter should have gone to the European agent; Mondadori has never sent money to me directly and I shouldn't be on this mailing list (snailmailing list, that is).

From next the 1 june ours society adottera' the Euro as account currency.

Interesting that Babelfish translated (sort of) all of the sentence except the verb. Adottera' is the future tense of "adotter" which is "adopt" Thus the original sentence says, in better English, "Beginning June 1 our society (could this mean company?) will adopt the Euro as coinage of account" (presumably an Italin idiom for .... hum, what do we call it over here?)

Denominera' again is a future tense "will be named" disporra' is "will dispose"

I agree that it looks like they are saying all their business will be in Euros from now on. Your agent is the one who will have to deal with this, I should think.

Hmm, the only phrase that comes to mind is "coin of the realm", but that's more poetic than fiduciary.

Yes, you're right; this is a matter for the agent to deal with. The fact that I received the letter seven weeks after it was dated suggests Mondadori isn't too well organized. Or maybe their lawyers told them to notify everybody, just to be safe.

"Money of account" is the American term, and it's in both my American Heritage and the Grolier's CD, so it must be a relatively common term. It means the currency in which accounts are kept, which may or may not coincide with the actual currency in use.

I would guess "society" is in this case the Italian word to describe a corporation; "S. A." (anonymous society?) is used in some Latin languages to denote such. "Company" refers to an organization, but not to it's legal status, so individual enterprises and partnerships may use "company", but in the US, "Inc." refers to the fact it is organized as a stock company, with unknown ownership and liability for debts limited to the assets of the enterprise, not extending to the personal assets of the owners (as would be true in partnerships or individual enterprises). At one time, virtually all stock brokerages were partnerships, but I believe most of them are now corporations.